X Bots and Earnings Announcements

Jan Hanousek (), Jan Hanousek () and Konstantin Sokolov ()
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Jan Hanousek: Fogelman College of Business Economics, University of Memphis, United States of America
Jan Hanousek: Department of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Zemedelska 1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic; CEPR, London, UK
Konstantin Sokolov: Fogelman College of Business Economics, University of Memphis, United States of America
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jan Hanousek

No 2023-92, MENDELU Working Papers in Business and Economics from Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the rationale and effects of buying bots on X (former Twitter). We observe that a large amount of attention to corporate X accounts around earnings announcements is driven by bots. Bot activity is a significant predictor of investor disagreement, which is persistent in the long term. Moreover, bot activity increases analyst dispersion for the following quarterly earnings announcement. Consistent with managerial short-termism, bot activity often accompanies intense earnings management. Our results are robust to various specifications, including a matching approach indicating causal interpretation.

Keywords: analysts’ dispersion; artificial attention increase; earnings management; investors’ disagreement; quarterly earnings; X bots; Twitter bots (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 D22 G11 G14 G30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40
Date: 2023-12
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http://ftp.mendelu.cz/RePEc/men/wpaper/92_2023.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: X Bots and Earnings Announcements (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:men:wpaper:92_2023

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